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Summary of the impact

The case study captures and describes the outputs and impacts arising
from cumulative research on the theme of accessibility in transport and
urban design. Impacts are evidenced both through the research process in
terms of end-user engagement, collaborative research and real world test
bed research (local communities and neighbourhoods); and through
intermediary and professional/ practitioner body validation, policy-making
and take up of research findings and guidance/toolkits arising. Impacts
have also occurred through wider dissemination, follow-up research and
collaboration both nationally and internationally.

Underpinning research

The AUNT-SUE research project was built on influential evidence-based
research undertaken by members of the staff team in a field that had
hitherto lacked systematic investigation. Shaw had chaired the
government's enquiry into Social Exclusion and the Provision Public
Transport with research carried out by Solomon, for the Department
of Environment Transport & the Regions. The final report formed the
basis for further research by the government and fed into the work the
Cabinet Office's Social Exclusion and Department for Transport's Mobility
units. Solomon with Shaw had also successfully completed an EU-FP5 project
(ISHTAR 2001-5) linking transport, health and urban environments for the
first time, with planning and software-based impact models arising. This
foundation led to the major 6 year research project funded under the
EPSRC's Sustainable Urban Environment (SUE) Programme between 2004-10 and
further research arising from this on participatory urban design,
accessible transport planning and most recently on obesogenic and age
supportive environments (with policy-makers and practitioners in USA and
Canada) and E-Mobility (electric vehicles - North Sea Region).

A fundamental `exclusion/inclusion' theme emerging early on in the
project was that of community safety and fear of crime, as one of the
prime barriers to pedestrian and transport access amongst older, younger
and particular vulnerable groups (e.g. ethnic minorities). Inclusive urban
design research developed `design against crime' and urban environment
modelling, integrating urban design quality, community planning and safety
measurement with the creation of systematic indices of environmental
street quality, supported by spatial (GIS) data visualisation techniques
and resultant tools. In particular, consultative and participatory
research and engagement methods were developed and further tested through
GIS-Participatory fieldwork and spatial modelling. A key finding was that
`accessibility' and accessible transport' benchmarks as defined and
legislated for, did not reflect the actual needs and travel behaviour of
particular target groups e.g. elderly, or reflect the local barriers to
mobility which prefaced access to the transport system and wider social
inclusion and participation. A key advance has been the further
development, validation and knowledge transfer of these individual
research approaches in the transport and social exclusion field, and the
development of inter-disciplinary methods across the research teams and
the integration of research methodologies and toolkits arising. This also
took place across micro, meso and macro scales of transport and urban
design planning, operation and decision/policy-making. The concept driving
this research has thus been that of the `Whole Journey Environment'.

Details of the impact

AUNT-SUE exhibition posters and supporting materials (e.g. flyers, report
summaries) were shown at consecutive events such as the Inclusive Design
conference (INCLUDE 2005/7/9), OS Terra Futures
conference/exhibition and in practitioner fora overseas - Joburg, S.Africa
(city planning/ transport/crime prevention); New Orleans, USA (crime
prevention); Montreal, Canada (ageing/ gerontology). A further EPSRC/Arts
Council award Sustainability and the 24-hour City: A Collaboration
with the Creative Arts (Shaw, Evans) funded two practising artists
who were engaged to interpret and exhibit our research results and
visualise test bed localities, data/findings and images. Week long
exhibitions at the London Festival of Architecture (LFA), including
visitor questionnaires and presentations were held at the German
Gymnasium, King's Cross/St Pancras (16-25 June 2006) with a follow-on
exhibition and presentation of this work at the North Country
conference/exhibition held at the URBIS Centre, Manchester in April 2007.
A further exhibition of findings and toolkit was held at the biannual
London Festival of Architecture (LFA) in June 2008, at the Building
Centre, London. Attendances at these high profile events (national TV,
extensive local/city and professional coverage) were 25,000 and 75,000
respectively with research and community workshops organised and held with
local authority chief planners, councillors and ministers/shadow
ministers, as well as local communities and firms.

In order to disseminate the project more widely, an AUNT-SUE video was
produced by the research team with the assistance of a Digital Media MA
student and tutor. The video features PI/Co-PI, researchers, partner
organisations and vox pop interviews and street walks within one of the
test bed sites (LB Camden). This video was available via the AUNT-SUE
website (www.aunt-sue.info) including sub-titles where needed and was
distributed at events in DVD format which are also available on request
(500 distributed to date). It is now available on YouTube. The film was
premiered at the Building Centre LFA event (above), and is regularly shown
at conferences, exhibitions and was shown at the Transport Museum cinema
following the Final Symposium event, attended by 75 representatives from
the transport industry, local/central government, press, as well academics
and the research team. The final symposium also saw the re-launch of the
AUNT-SUE website, the prime dissemination and communication vehicle -
newly designed and `populated' - including the full suite of menu-driven
toolkits, publications and other outputs, including case studies, reports
and related user guides and project video, with over 4,500 `hits' on this
site recorded between January and April 2010 (the site went offline in
early 2013 due to unforeseen technical issues, which are currently being
addressed).

Further evidence of impact and take-up of research outputs include the
following examples:

AUNT-SUE GIS-based urban environment and audit tool incorporated into
Transport for London's (TfL) Guidance for Submissions of Local
Accessibility Schemes, prepared for all London Boroughs and
sub-regional partnerships (March 2007). This was the requisite guidance
for all local authorities in their bids to TfL for accessibility
improvement capital funding.

EPSRC People & Systems review (January 2009) - the international
reviewers assessment of transport projects including the AUNT-SUE
exhibition and supporting materials (Poster Number 58), noted that
'there was good connectivity to users and stakeholders' and in the case
of more applied projects such as AUNT-SUE, `high impact on the user
community'.

AUNT-SUE research findings and tools included in successive
Parliamentary annual reports Research and development work relating
to assistive technology, 2010-11 and 2008-9, Department of Health

AUNT-SUE consulted on and presented research findings and urban
environment tools (Evans & Shaw) to PM Cabinet Office Strategy Unit,
for joint publication An analysis of urban transport (November
2009) with Departments for Transport, Health, Communities & Local
Government (CLG) and DEFRA. Although the research was not directly
referenced in the report, the authors adopt the `inclusive whole journey
environment' theme as defined by Evans & Azmin-Fouladi.

AUNT-SUE consulted on and presented findings/recommendations (Evans)
on Indicators/ Metrics for sustainable travel, impacts on quality of
life and land use/transport interaction, to Chief Scientific Adviser's
Unit, Department for Transport (April 2010 pre-General Election).
Initial work on transport and social exclusion was recently included in
departmental report Valuing the social impacts of public transport
(2013).